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Al Capone
Alphonse Gabriel "Al" Capone (played by Stephen Graham) is an extremely violent, ruthless and hot-tempered bootlegger and gangster based out of Chicago, who ends up becoming one of the most powerful, notorious and feared crime bosses in history. He is based on the historical figure of the same name. Biography Background Al was born Alphonse Gabriel Capone on January 17, 1899. His parents were Italian immigrants Teresina Zapone (née Raiola) born December 28, 1867, in Angri, Salerno, and Gabriele Capone, a barber from Castellammare di Stabia near Naples. The family immigrated to the United States in 1893 and settled at 95 Navy Street, in the Navy Yard section of downtown Brooklyn. Gabriele Capone worked at a nearby barber shop at 29 Park Avenue. Gabriele and Teresina had eight more children: James (known as "Richard"), Raffaele ("Ralph"), Salvatore ("Frank"), John, Albert, Matthew, Rose and Mafalda. When Al was 11, the family moved to 38 Garfield Place in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Capone showed promise as a student, but had trouble with the rules at his strict parochial Catholic school. He dropped out at the age of 14, after being expelled for hitting a female teacher in the face. He worked at odd jobs around Brooklyn, including at a candy store and at a bowling alley. During this time, Capone was influenced by gangster Johnny Torrio, whom he came to regard as a mentor. After his initial stint with small-time gangs that included the Junior Forty Thieves and the Bowery Boys, Capone joined the Brooklyn Rippers and then the powerful Five Points Gang based in Lower Manhattan. During this time, he was employed and mentored by fellow racketeer Frankie Yale (an associate of Torrio) as a bartender in a Coney Island dance hall and saloon called the Harvard Inn. Capone received the scars that gave him the nickname "Scarface" in a fight. After he inadvertently insulted a woman while working the door at a Brooklyn night club, Capone was attacked by her brother Frank Gallucio; his face was slashed three times on the left side. Al later claimed that he received the scars serving with the famous Lost Battalion during World War I but in reality he never served in the military. Torrio moved to Chicago during the war. Al had a son with Mae Coughlin on December 4, 1918, and they married on December 30, 1918. Yale contacted Torrio and requested that he give Capone work in Chicago because he was being investigated for a murder in New York and also needed to tidy up his image. Capone accepted Torrio's offer and went to Chicago in 1919 where he worked as Torrio's driver and as a bouncer and bartender at the Four Deuces brothel. He moved his family to Chicago soon afterwards. Season 1 The Al Capone of January 1920 is a 21-year old gangster who works as a driver, bartender and enforcer for Johnny Torrio. Capone is a young man of low culture -- immature, impatient, impulsive and loudmouthed -- who prefers to use violence when presented with a conflict. Everything seems to be funny to him, too. He shares a flat with his wife Mae, young son Sonny and mother Teresina, whom he keeps unaware of what he does for a living. for the first time. ("Boardwalk Empire")]] As Torrio’s driver, Al accompanies him and his boss Big Jim Colosimo to Atlantic City on the eve of Prohibition in January 17, 1920, but is left outside of the meeting between local town boss Nucky Thompson and New York City gangsters Arnold Rothstein and Lucky Luciano where Torrio and Colosimo act as mediators. While waiting in the parking lot he meets Nucky’s driver, Jimmy Darmody, and immediately connects with him. The two are almost the same age, each has a son and a shared desire to make easy money in the illegal alcohol business. Darmody is also a war veteran, and Capone falsely claims to be one and to have served in the Lost Battallion, saying that his facial scars were made by a German bayonet. The bosses' reunion ends with Nucky selling a liquor shipment worth $60,000 to Rothstein, but Darmody and Capone hijack the shipment while en route to New York. The hijacking, envisioned by Darmody and intended to be bloodless, is compromised when Capone is startled by a deer and the two young men resort to killing Rothstein’s men. While Jimmy remains in Atlantic City, Capone drives the liquor to Chicago and sells it to Torrio, who approves their actions after the fact and in turn arranges for Frankie Yale to murder Colosimo since the senior gangster didn't want to be involved in the illegal alcohol business. However, one of Rothstein’s men, Simon, whom Capone should have killed, turns up alive some days later and identifies Jimmy, forcing him to take refuge in Chicago. wait for a meeting with Charlie Sheridan. ("Family Limitation")]] Torrio employs Jimmy and Al to collect taxes from the businesses near the Four Deuces brothel. Once again, Capone causes problems when he beats a bartender in Greektown who is already under the ‘protection’ of Irish gangster Charlie Sheridan and thus refuses to pay Torrio for it. Sheridan responds by ordering a hit against Pearl, a prostitute who was in a relationship with Jimmy, and causing minor damage in the Four Deuces. Jimmy, Al and Torrio then set a trap against Sheridan and kill him, giving them control of Greektown. After the successful attempt, a party is hosted in which Torrio praises Jimmy for the idea he came up with and notes that he could use a lot of men who were like Jimmy. Al then, possibly a bit jealous, begins to crack jokes about Jimmy's time in the war, Jimmy whose had suspicions that Al never participated in the war, returns the favor by implying exactly that in front of everyone and makes fun of him and where he got his scars. Around the same time, Al invites Jimmy to dine with his family, during which the latter discovers that Sonny, Al's son, is deaf. After the party following their takeover of Greektown Al visits Jimmy in his room to talk about what Jimmy said infront of everyone, he then goes on explaining to Jimmy that he believes that his child's deafness is a punishment for his own sins. With some connections to the police force in Chicago. Al Capone finds out where Sheridan's right hand man Liam, the man who slashed Pearl, is taking his lunches, which leads to a confrontation between him and Jimmy. After Jimmy goes back to Atlantic City, Al gets in a discussion with Torrio after playing a practical joke on him while in a meeting with Jake Guzik ending with a furious Torrio. This leads to Al's deciding to make a drive towards maturity. Following a visit to a synagogue, where an old Jewish man points out that Al wears a boy’s cap, he ditches it for a fedora and begins to dress more like an archetypal gangster. A couple of weeks later Al Capone drives Torrio to Atlantic City to attend a peace meeting with Nucky Thompson and Arnold Rothstein just before the presidential election in November. During the meeting Capone even calls out Lucky Luciano for making a joke about Big Jim Colosimo’s death. After peace is made Capone, on orders from Nucky Thompson, takes part in the killing of the D’Alessio Brothers. Season 2 In February 1921, Al and Torrio have a meeting with George Remus to discuss if he could be a suitable supplier for them, rather then having it delivered all the way from Atlantic City. The meeting goes well and they decide to have Remus deliver 4,000 cases per month. After the meeting Torrio asks Capone to head to Atlantic City and tell Nucky Thompson that the business has changed. Capone agrees since he is about to travel east to bury his father who just passed away. Next month, Capone visits Nucky with the news as well as paying a visit to Jimmy Darmody in Atlantic City. At Jimmy's new house, they share a coffee and also discusses their current situation, how much they've already moved up in the world in a very short time. A couple months later, Capone is brought in by Jimmy in an attempt to take over the Atlantic City liquor business from Nucky after Jimmy has alienated his old financial backers who supported The Commodore before his untimely stroke. But rather then keeping to the plan to have Nucky go to prison, Al urges Jimmy to have Nucky killed and be done with it and with support from Luciano, Meyer Lansky and Nucky’s own brother Eli Thompson, Jimmy eventually agrees and accepts Capone's offer of hiring a Chicago hitman to do the deed. However, the assassination is bungled and the hit-man is killed by the feds. This leads Jimmy to make an angry call to Capone and berate him for hiring incompetent people. Capone takes the news lightly. After hanging up the phone, Torrio comes in and asks him to keep him out of whatever he and Jimmy are up to in Atlantic City, sensing that he's doing business behind his back. and Lucky Luciano in Jimmy Darmody's house.]] Nucky, having strategically stepped down as ruler of Atlantic City, leaving the town wide open for them, Capone brings George Remus, Chicago's new liquor supplier, to Atlantic City where he and his partners Jimmy, Charlie, Meyer and Mickey Doyle strike a deal for 5,000 cases which they will hijack and then sell in Atlantic City. However, Nucky’s maneuver of flooding the town with quality liquor renders Remus’ alcohol worthless and at the same time triggers an African-American strike which puts the young gangsters’ finances at risk. It also puts Jimmy in a position where the others blame him for promising them Coastguard protection from other sellers. Jimmy goes on telling them that it's Nucky's work in progress and after a comment made by Capone that they should have had him killed, Jimmy again blames him for screwing up their previous attempt to do just that. With the prospect of losing a fortune, they all split up and sell their alcohol in their respective towns with Jimmy heading to Princeton. In his absence, Jimmy’s wife is murdered (while in intimate company with another woman) and Jimmy goes missing. Al assumes that Jimmy is the killer and even jokes that if she was his wife he’d done the same. Doyle tells them it wasn't Jimmy who murdered her but in fact Manny Horwitz. Al doesn't bother much, seeing it as Jimmy's problem and agrees to divide Jimmy’s part of the alcohol with Luciano and Lansky behind Jimmy’s back. Season 3 Chicago crime boss Johnny Torrio is headed to Naples for the New Year but tries to settle a turf dispute with Northside Irish gangster Dean O'Banion before leaving. The sit-down goes badly when O'Banion mocks Al's deaf son. Torrio asks Capone not to start a war while he's away and Capone makes it his New Year's resolution. As Torrio leaves, Capone tells his associate Jake Guzik that it is not New Year until midnight. Nelson Van Alden arrives at O'Banion's florist shop to sell him some irons just as Capone gets there. O'Banion pretends that Nelson is his bodyguard, and that his suitcase contains a weapon. Van Alden plays along and Capone backs down. to fight.]] Al Capone readies for his day and notices that his son, Sonny, has a bruise on his face. Mae tells Al that it happened at school and that Sonny is being bullied by a new boy. Al rails against the bully attacking someone who is practically deaf and Mae reminds him that it is a special school and all the students are deaf. Al arrives for work at the Four Deuces brothel and is disgusted to receive a handful of sticky cash from Jake Guzik. He criticizes Guzik's unkempt appearance and urges him to take better care of himself, Guzik is however dimissive of Al's advice and proceeds with his collections. That evening Al tries to teach Sonny to defend himself but instead scares the boy to tears. He embraces his son, apologizing for upsetting him. Dean O'Banion's man, Joe Miller, assaults Guzik when he is making his collections. Miller mocks Guzik's appearance and body odor as he beats him in front of a crowded bar. Guzik returns to the Deuces and tells Al what happened, which enrages Al. He heads to the speakeasy where Guzik was assaulted, finds Miller and beats him to death. In his dying moments Al reminds Miller that that he shouldn't be picking on people who can't defend themselves. He then goes home to Sonny and plays him a song on the mandolin, putting the boys hand on his throat so he can feel the vibrations of his singing. A couple of months later, Torrio has returned from his trip to Italy. He sits down with Capone about the incident involving him and Joe Miller, one of O’Banion’s men. Capone is worried that his killing of Joe will upset O’Banion and cause a feud between the two gangs, but makes it clear to Torrio that he had no other choice. Torrio tells Al that he did what he thought was right, and tells him they'll put it aside until they meet with O’Banion the following day. The following day, O’Banion, Hymie Weiss and Van Alden go to meet with Capone and Torrio. Van Alden, with his briefcase of irons, is introduced as the “muscle.” Torrio goes on explaining to O'Banion that life is too short for such arguments and uses Pompeii as an example. O’Banion and Capone are confused, but Van Alden knows what Torrio is talking about. When the subject of Joe Miller comes up, Torrio leaves and tells him to talk to Capone about it. When Van Alden starts selling his aquavit to local Norwegian cafe owners, his side business fails when Al Capone realizes that he is selling hooch on the wrong side of town. As a result, two of Capone's men apprehend Van Alden and bring him to Capone himself. Capone then presses Van Alden for information regarding the operations of his arch-rival Dean O' Banion's. Capone is visited in Chicago by Eli Thompson from Atlantic City and strikes a deal with him. With a group of men including Eli, he travels back to Atlantic City where New York gangster Gyp Rosetti has just arrived to wrest control of the town from Nucky Thompson. They arrive at a lumberyard 18 hours later where Nucky and Chalky White are holed up. Nucky and his allies make the lumberyard their headquarters and In the following days a turf war ensues in Atlantic City with both sides suffering casualties. During the war Capone and Chalky have a hard time keeping their enmity on hold while Nucky has to make sure none of them breaks away from the battle. Later when a brawl is about to start between the two groups, Eli and Nucky come out of their office and announce that Masseria has withdrawn his support from Rosetti and he needs Capone and Chalky to plan out their victory. The plan is for Nucky and Eli to head for the Artemis Club to murder Gyp and for Chalky and Capone to take all their men to a narrow road in the woods, where they will massacre all of Masseria's men returning to New York. Chalky's and Capone's mission is accomplished and the two of them reconcile after a job well done. Season 4 Al, Frank and Ralph Capone bring girls from the Four Deuces to another brothel in Cicero. Afterwards they are in Torrio's office where somebody has been writing newspaper stories about Torrio and Capone's operations. Al's surname Capone was spelled wrong so later on Frank and Al end up having a fight in his home when his mother walks in and stops them fighting as Al's about to hit him with a shoe (New York Sour). Soon after Al and Ralph enlist the help of George Mueller to convince laborers to vote republican in Cicero. This leads to a riot in which Frank Capone is killed by police. After a failed assassination attempt on Johnny Torrio, Al becomes the leader of the gang. Relationships Family *Teresina Capone: Mother *Mae Capone: Wife *Sonny Capone: Son (deaf) *Ralph Capone: Brother *Frank Capone: Brother (deceased) Racketeering *Johnny Torrio: Mentor and employer *Jimmy Darmody: Friend and bootlegging partner (deceased) *Frankie Yale: Friend and former colleague (deceased) *Richard Harrow: Associate (deceased) *Mickey Doyle: Former bootlegging partner (deceased) *Lucky Luciano: Former bootlegging partner *Meyer Lansky: Former bootlegging partner *Scozione: Colleague *Gino: Colleague *Antonio: Colleague *Dean O'Banion: Enemy (deceased) *Billy Winslow: Accomplice (deceased) *Vito Scalercio: Hitman (deceased) *Nelson Van Alden: Employee (deceased) Victims *Davey Murdoch: Murder victim, New York gangster, executed by Al and Jimmy Darmody during the Hammonton hijacking *Simon: Murder victim, died days after the Hammonton hijacking of a shotgun blast to the stomach *Eddie Corrigan: Assault victim *Sheridan’s second: Murder victim, Chicago gangster, shot in the chest on orders from Johnny Torrio *Pius D'Alessio: Ordered death, killed by Richard Harrow, Philadelphia gangster *Ignacious D'Alessio: Ordered death, killed by Richard Harrow, Philadelphia gangster *Leo D'Alessio: Ordered death, killed by Jimmy Darmody, Philadelphia gangster *Sixtus D'Alessio: Murder victim, Philadelphia gangster, shot in the head on orders from Nucky Thompson and Arnold Rothstein *Joe Miller: Murder victim, Chicago gangster, beaten to death for assaulting Jake Guzik *Masseria's men: Murder victim's, New York gangsters, executed with Chalky White *Stu: Murder victim, Chicago gangster, repeatedly shot for safe Van Alden identity *Police Officer: Murder victim, revenge for Frank dies. *Cenzo: Murder victim, joking for Al. Memorable Quotes *''"I'm makin' a statement!"'' *''"Maybe you didn't hear, but Colosimo retired on account of that bullet in his fucking head!"'' *''"Yeah... But new year's ain't till midnight." (Resolution) *(trying to teach his son to fight) ''"Hit me tough guy. Come on. Come on hit me. Come on! Hit me. Come on tough guy hit me. Come on. What was that, huh? Come on hit me harder. What was that? Harder than that. Come on, put your hands up. Put your hands up. Put your hands up! Put both- like this in front of your face. In front of your face. Like this. Okay? You're gonna throw your punch- you're gonna throw your punch like BANG! Come on lemme see what you got, come on! COME ON! HIT ME! You gotta hit me- you gonna let people bully you?! Huh?! Come on and hit me, huh!... Come here. Come here. Come here. Shh. It's okay, Sonny. Shh come here. It's okay. Shh-shh it's okay come here come here. Come on. Papa's got you." ''(Blue Bell Boy) *"You wanna pick on people who can't defend themselves? Huh? Pay for his funeral." (Blue Bell Boy) *"''We been on the road for 18 hours... I need a bath, some chow... and then you and me sit down, and we talk about who dies,eh?" Appearances External links *Al Capone on The Godfather Wiki. *Al Capone on Wikipedia Category:Al Capone Category:Catering Category:Characters Category:Chicago Category:Drivers Category:Gamblers Category:Gangsters Category:Historical figures Category:Italian people Category:Main Characters Category:Memorable Quotes Category:Season 1 Category:Season 2 Category:Season 3